Experience the First Music Album in Virtual Reality: The Melody of Dust from Viacom and Hot Sugar Is Now Available for the HTC Vive

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
The Melody of Dust, a virtual reality (VR) music and gaming
experience created by multidisciplinary artist Nick Koenig (aka Hot
Sugar) in collaboration with Viacom, was released
today for the HTC Vive headset.

Dubbed a "new
art form" by Rolling Stone, this immersive exploration of
sight and sound has players discover and unlock more than 80 original
melodies hidden within objects found in an animated castle. Together,
the melodies form a kind of VR album shaped by the unique gameplay. A
self-titled "soundtrack" by Hot Sugar is also available on iTunes and
Spotify in conjunction with its release.

"The atmospheric fantasy world in The Melody of Dust allows you
to confirm that any object in the universe is a musical instrument,
whether we know how to play it or not," said Koenig.

The release of The Melody of Dust follows its March 14 world
premiere at the SXSW Virtual Cinema in Austin, Texas.

"The Melody of Dust truly is the first of its kind deconstructed
VR music experience," said Chaki Ng, SVP Viacom NEXT, Viacom's research
and development arm for emerging entertainment technologies. "We believe
this is a glimpse of what the future of music could look and feel like
as you literally step into the mind of a musician and create your own
score."

Viacom NEXT is working on the future of entertainment. We explore,
prototype and develop novel projects with our brands (which include MTV,
Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures and BET) and with
external partners including startups, academics (e.g., MIT, CMU, and
major NYC universities via the NYC Media Lab) as well as creators,
artists, and musicians. With a focus on Virtual Reality, we are
making room-scale interactive music experiences, narrative worlds,
games, and exploring live-action capture techniques. In addition to The
Melody of Dust, Viacom NEXT VR productions include Chocolatecreated by Tyler Hurdand Smash
Party VR, the hilarious hell-raising Virtual Reality
collaboration with Titmouse, the Emmy award-winning animation studio.
Visit us online at http://viacomnext.com.

Nick Koenig, also known as Hot Sugar, multidisciplinary artist

Nick Koenig is a multidisciplinary artist best known for his music under
the name Hot Sugar. He is the founder of a musical philosophy referred
to as Associative Music, a modernized branch of musique concrete. His
latest project, The Melody of Dust premiered at SXSW alongside a
recent album of the same name. Developed in collaboration with Viacom
NEXT, the VR music experience is an extension of Hot Sugar's musical
philosophy. Nick Koenig was the subject of the feature length
documentary Hot Sugar's Cold World, which premiered at SXSW in 2015.